Posted on 07/01/2012 10:45:54 AM PDT by thecodont
LOS ANGELES (AP) Los Angeles police are aiming to beat suspects to the scene of a crime by using computers to predict where trouble might occur.
The Los Angeles Police Department is the largest agency to embrace an experiment known as "predictive policing," which crunches data to determine where to send officers to thwart would-be thieves and burglars. Time Magazine called it one of the best inventions of 2011.
Early successes could serve as a model for other cash-strapped law enforcement agencies, but some legal observers are concerned it could lead to unlawful stops and searches that violate Fourth Amendment protections.
In the San Fernando Valley, where the program was launched late last year, officers are seeing double-digit drops in burglaries and other property crimes. The program has turned enough in-house skeptics into believers that there are plans to roll it out citywide by next summer.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
In related news new technology allows for certain people to predict future homosexual activity so they can plan on joining in when the time comes...
Enforce immigration laws, deport illegal aliens when they are found and....crime will drop.
Dramatically.
When do I get my Time magazine award?
This sounds far more ominous than it actually is. And the bottom line is that it won’t matter. Simple logic.
1) Go to any big city, it doesn’t even have to be in the US. Then ask 20 random people in different parts of the city, “What part of the city is the ‘bad’ part of the city?”
If you want to be more scientific about it, chart where in the city crimes are happening. While there is some crime happening just about everywhere, one part of the city will stand out as having a LOT more crime. There are even websites that do this right now.
2) Put a proportionately greater number of police there.
Like him or not, this was Rudy Giuliani’s approach to stopping crime. It worked a block at a time. First flood a block with police who will ticket and arrest for every single offense, large and small.
The bad guys quickly bug out of there, thinking they will return after the police leave. But in their absence, the vacuum they have left behind is filled by other people. The police have talked with everyone there, and know the place backwards and forwards.
The zinger is that once they leave, it takes only a fraction of their number to *keep* that block low crime. And those cops know everyone who is supposed to live there, so strangers stick out. The great number of police then move to an adjacent block.
In Giuliani’s case, “block zero” was Times Square, and it is still tremendously different now than it was before.
“Pre-crime?” No problem. Just go to where the crime is.
Chicago has been using “the Crystal Ball” when JFled was superintendent.
we can see how useful it has been! Zer0!
Don't hold your breath. They don't give awards to people for logical "clear" thinking.
Awards are given to people who can take a straight forward thought and twist and mangle it (and then) come up with a unique solution to what was originally a simple solution.
” This sounds far more ominous than it actually is. And the bottom line is that it wont matter. Simple logic.”
It’s actually simpler than you suggest.
Criminals already in custody will commit more crimes at a near certainty. Keep them in custody, and you’ve stopped future crime before it even occurs.
It actually works when tried. No tarot cards or processing power required.
This sounds like something Joe Friday would do with a map and a box of push pins
Works for me! Good call. Reminds me of a couple decades ago in the civic center of San Francisco, tourists would ask me what direction to walk to Golden Gate Park. I'd tell them no, don't walk a straight line, it goes through a ghetto full of criminals. Some people tried to publish maps showing bad areas, but they were called racist. Cars would drive a straight line and get rocks thrown at them. Some who got out to chase the rock throwers were set upon and robbed (a setup). The ghetto was cleaned up, so it's safer now.
I ask the locals what is a bad area when traveling in new destinations.
Right after the election.
Coming soon, hackers penetrate police "predictive" software and send cops on a merry ride all over LA except where they intend to score big.
Coming next (when this doesn't work) "preventive detention" for those who might commit a crime.
Regards,
GtG
If Zer0 thinks he can get away with it, yeah.
The big question of my secondary school years was: Will Orwell or Huxley be right, after all? The founding fathers knew the answer: we surrender freedoms willingly.
It seems almost a truism, an answer you'll hear is where the MLK-named street is.
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